CHARLOTTE, NC - OCTOBER 24: Head coach Mike Singletary of the San Francisco 49ers walks to the sidelines against the Carolina Panthers during their game at Bank of America Stadium on October 24, 2010 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

- It's so cute how Giants fans talk about their team putting them through torture.

They have no idea. Their torture is like Ken-and-Barbie torture.

You want genuine fan torture, you give your heart to the 49ers. On Sunday, they lost 23-20 to the previously winless Carolina Panthers. They are 1-6 and running low on hope.

This might be a good time for the 49ers to flee the country. They could head to Europe, go on the lam on some kind of plan: witness protection, amnesty, semester abroad, whatever.

The 49ers need some time away to figure out whether to go with the good news or the bad news.

The good news is that coach Mike Singletary still believes in his "vision."

"I still believe we can go to the playoffs," Singletary said Sunday. "I still believe we can get those things done. We've just got to get the right things in place and go from there."

The bad news is that Singletary is a party of one. That's not to say his team has given up, but though the coach's vision is the playoffs, the players' vision has narrowed to play-to-play survival. That and hoping Jed York didn't bet his car on his playoffs prediction, because you hate to see your team owner hitchhiking.

The vision Singletary is selling, his players aren't buying.

They know something is wrong; they know you don't get to 1-6 by accident. They know they are in trouble, that they are not a good team. The fact that they lost quarterback Alex Smith to a shoulder injury Sunday is just frosting off the cake.

I asked Singletary if Sunday's loss changed his big-picture view of his team.

"Doesn't change one thing," he said evenly. "It just hurts a little bit more. I really felt like we were on track to go forward. ... We've got to regroup first and get on the right track."

But you can't regroup if you never grouped in the first place.

The 49ers have a problem, and it's either in the area of talent or coaching, or both. When it comes to coaching, all we can do is judge by the product. As for leadership, Singletary's field-side manner probably doesn't inspire a lot of confidence among his troops.

He spent a good amount of time Sunday on the field, and running the sideline, yapping at the officials. That's just not a good look when your team has problems that are begging to be addressed in the heat of the game. Coach Sing has kicked more headsets than his team has won games.

Off the field, Singletary seems lost for answers. He fired his offensive coordinator, and on Sunday, his still-stodgy offense scored one touchdown against what many consider to be the worst team in the league. Defense? The Panthers hadn't scored more than 18 points in a game until Sunday.

You can't chalk up Sunday's loss to jet lag, because the 49ers came roaring out of the gate, scoring on their fourth play, a touchdown pass to Vernon Davis. Davis caught only two more passes the rest of the game, against a team vulnerable to a great tight end.

What was the problem there? Was Davis getting double-covered?

"Uh, doubled, not being on the same page," Davis said. "Chemistry. Chemistry wasn't there."

If there was any talk of playoffs by the players in the locker room after the game, I missed it.

"To me," Davis said, "the only thing I really think of is playing hard, playing strong, keep fighting, don't give up. And finish."

That's all you can do, right?

Maybe it's time for the head coach to get down in the trenches with the boys, get down to reality. Optimistic is nice, but sometimes realistic is better. Because after a point, the lofty, long-range, pie-in-sky stuff starts to ring as hollow as if you're shouting it into the Grand Canyon.

Singletary, when asked if it has sunk in that maybe his team is not that good, said thoughtfully, "I'll put it this way: No. No. There is not that much sinking in the world."

He's standing in quicksand. As a player, you don't want your coach to give up on you, but for the 49ers to match last season's 8-8, they will have to finish 7-2. The guess here is that they must finish at least that strong to save their coach's job. More likely, it's unsavable.

Singletary's best bet now is to put aside the visions and dreams, stop chirping at the refs and concentrate on fixing his team. The players don't enjoy the losing, either, but they might feel better knowing their coach is down there in the real world with them.